A FORMER Wiltshire flight engineer is pulling out all the stops to raise some funds for Ukraine after watching the televised scenes of the war.

Moved by the news reports of the Russian invasion, Neville Boulton is opening his Great Bulkington miniature railway layout on Easter Monday (April 18) in a bid to raise much-needed funds for Ukrainian charities.

Nevill, 89, who used to fly jumbo jets for British Airways and Virgin, said: “We are hoping for a good turn-out and would like to raise between £200 and £300.

“We enjoy having the children here and giving them rides. Some of them have never seen an engine before and they love it.”

He has heard that a villager is bringing along a group of four Ukrainian refugees who have recently arrived in the UK after fleeing their war-torn country.

In 2005, Mr Boulton’s Great Bulkington Railway entertained Ukrainian children who were visiting the UK for recuperation from the Chernobyl atomic disaster.

He said: “Some of them were still radioactive. Together with friends, we entertained them on my railway with lots of rides.

“They were all given driving lessons on the trains, taken around the local farms on a hay wagon and fed lots of Easter chocolate treats.

“We still have their photographs in our village hall. Hopefully, they have survived the war.”

The retired aircraft flight engineer built a five-inch gauge miniature track with rolling stock including railway locomotives and four carriages in the garden of his home in Mill Lane, Bulkington.

It was completed in the summer of 1988 and was built by its owner Mr Boulton, his wife Thelma and several of his friends.

His model railway complex has 1,000 feet of track, a 40-feet-long tunnel, a station and a working signal system.

Mr Boulton opens it two or three times a year to offer sit-on rides on coaches pulled by three electrically powered diesel outline miniature railway locomotives.

Over the past three decades, he has raised more than £25,000 for charities by giving adults and children rides.

Supported by volunteers, Mr Boulton will open the gates to his garden on Easter Monday afternoon from 2 to 4pm to offer rides to children and adults.

The ladies of Bulkington are serving light refreshments in the village hall next door and funds are raised by charging for the rides at just a pound for two circuits.